Lighter
by LunaStellaCat
Summary: There are dark days. The trick is to find the light. Written for TGS forum. Reviews would be awesome.
1. Lighter

The Golden Snitch

Transfiguration Class: Write a story about a character who uses a matchstick or a lighter rather than a wand.

(prompts) matchstick, redundant, Dean Thomas

White Day

School and house: Hogwarts, Hufflepuff

Prompts: mysterious

Giftee: JustPaulinHere

To anyone who has suffered depression. There are dark days, yes, but there are light days, too.

"Lighter"

The glass stayed half full. A controlled, handsome face covered the covers of European and American covers; from a glance, Rolf woke on Wednesday morning without this crippling doubt. Redundant and certainly recycled, he played the part of his grandfather, and while there had been great strides in the magical community with magical creatures and beasts, he found it hard to get out of bed some mornings and start the day, and yet the world saw none of the fear, worry or sadness.

On Wednesday morning, back on home soil, lying in the New York brownstone, Rolf stared at the ceiling and contemplating whether his great aunt ever crossed the lines in this bedroom. He doubted it, seeing as Mrs. Espinoza or whatever the old landlady called herself had famously never allowed gentlemen up here.

A lot changed in eighty years. Rolf always stayed in at least two places at once, a globetrotter, for he juggled a handful of responsibilities as the Mr. Scamander. Newt stayed home in Dorset, still struggling with the definition of a peaceful retirement. Whatever this meant. The grief, and the worry, and the words turned to ash in Rolf's mouth.

Luna Lovegood tried her best to distract him. When they'd married seven years ago, he'd insisted she keep her name and they forget this nonsense about a prenuptial agreement. He asked if she was all right, and she nodded, distracting him with a kiss as they came together. Rolf placed his hands on her hips, loving this first thing in the morning. Someone knocked on the door, and Luna cupped a hand over Rolf's mouth as he groaned.

"Yes. Just a moment." Luna closed her eyes, savoring these last few moments of silence.

The secretary, Dean, asked for Mr. Scamander and said blah, blah, blah about the Scamander Foundation and something about the natural disaster. Rolf, blocking out the incessant voice of Dean Thomas, concentrated on his wife's silvery blue eyes and her long hair. Intertwining their fingers, pale and dark, he made Luna forget her surroundings for the moment, too.

"Very nice." Rolf wondered idly if Dean always listened at doors like a faithful guard dog. Waiting until Dean left, Luna pulled on jeans and a top with butterfly sleeves. She took the compliment. Rolf got dressed, too, hating the slow adjustment to Daylight Savings time. "Tell him we fuck every morning before breakfast to get a little exercise in."

"No." Luna tossed him a Scamander Foundation t-shirt to wear over a plain long-sleeved one. She slipped on simple shoes as Rolf cleaned up in the bathroom. She helped him with the Cartier watch, not meeting his eyes when she unearthed a tired subject. "You need help."

"No. I need to get to Madison Square Garden." Rolf sighed, frustrated when Luna shook her head sadly. "What is this?"

"You told me shadows swarm you in the light." Luna crossed her arms, tapping her foot, Rolf furrowed his brow, scared to go down this path. Last night, apparently for no reason at all, he'd wept as they shared stories and made love. She switched to Spanish, her way of edging Dean out.

"Secrets. They exist for a reason. Eastern Standard Time."

Rolf spoke to his watch; the watch face flipped over, a Levitation Charm, and locked it back into place, changing from AEST.

"Eastern Standard Time. New York," answered a cool English female voice.

They rushed from New Zealand late yesterday afternoon, and Rolf swore he permanently suffered whiplash from International Apparition. The powers that be, essentially Charlie Weasley's younger brother, Percy, hated whenever gave the standardized rules the finger. In all fairness, Rolf needed to jump around because his grandfather expected the corporate side and the magizoologist side to exist together.

Newt had never bothered with such duality. Newt Scamander danced to his own heartbeat, and people either accepted him or got left behind. What did he care? Truthfully, whenever Rolf read through the renowned magizoologist's journals, he'd seriously doubted whether Newt even noticed his outer appearance.

Rolf poured himself a stiff cup of Colombian coffee, the good stuff. Dean usually beat him to it and tripped over his expensive polished dress shoes to serve Rolf. The gay secretary intrigued Rolf for a while. When Dean wouldn't cross into China between a flu epidemic, Rolf had laughed, reminding him it was a Muggle disease and he'd be quite all right.

Dean served an old man eggs and avocado toast. Rolf frowned, his fixed expression composed as he sipped his brew and studied his aged grandfather. Newt might outlive them all. Instead of the auburn hair, his hair turned white and he carried his weight around the middle. Newt wore those old-fashioned spectacles, the ones without the frames that rested on his nose.

"Morning." Luna pecked the old man on his paper thin cheek. She never bothered with asking how he followed them. Newt got bored, as Dean explained it, and he considered Rolf personal entertainment.

"You shouldn't Apparate across the pond." Rolf winced at the havoc he expected to come the the Apparition Overload. Rolf had slapped Percy with this nickname when Percy had slapped him with silvery bracelets upon returning back to England in 2005.

Newt shrugged, unconcerned as he puffed from a pipe. He sat on a barstool at the island. When Rolf had remodeled this place, he redesigned it with the clotheshorse and the old dining room in mind. Aunt Queenie left him everything, including Uncle Jacob's bakery.

"Are you going to throw an old man in jail?" A smile played on Newt's dry lips as he surveyed Rolf over his specs. "How many times have you been arrested?"

"Four." Rolf counted off on his fingers.

"Five," corrected Luna. She left to answer the door. She reeled off the answer: Jordan, Argentina, Romania with Charlie Weasley, jolly old England, and New York. She came back, flicking a silver cigarette lighter, playing with its flame.

"Keeping up the tradition. Angering the Americans." Newt clinked mugs with his grandson and sipped his black coffee. "What?"

Rolf chuckled, laughing for the the first time in forever. "Forgot about that last one."

Dean lit the scented candles with the lighter, momentarily forgetting he was a Muggleborn wizard. Rolf noticed. Newt confused, missed a step somewhere. He put scrambled eggs on toast as Luna spread whatever on toast. Rolf found her appetite rather interesting.

"Hazelnut spread and mayo?" Rolf held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Store bought."

"Shut up." Luna usually said no to red meat, too, but her body turned her down. She'd given up last month when a helper at a clinic reeled off her weight on a scale. "Who asked you?"

"No judgment. Your shoes don't match. Is this a fashion statement?" Rolf pitted an avocado with a knife and sliced it in his hand. Luna tossed away her weird breakfast and walked back in the bedroom. Rolf checked his watch before shrugged and checking on his weepy wife. She asked to go away, so he returned to the kitchen, his shoulders slumped. "Good job. Newton. Made her cry before seven."

"I didn't do anything," said Newt, grumbling when the silver trinket wouldn't light his smoke.

"Not you. Me." Rolf found fresh fruit in the stores and whisked this into yogurt. He tasted this with his with his finger and made new toast, shooing Dean away with a butter knife. Newt smiled with his whole face.

"What happened in New York?" Newt searched the cupboards and drawers. "Grandma's tracking the spells on my wand because she believes I'm not smoking anymore."

"Yeah, there's a fix to this." Rolf smiled, packing Luna's second breakfast in a brown bag.

"I will disinherit you," threatened Newt, slapping the dead lighter on the island. A nearby Tiffany lamp went out in the sitting room.

Rolf pointed his wand tip in line with his grandfather's and muttered, " _Deletus_." Smoke appeared, broke the connection, and erased any traces of Newt Scamander being a bad boy. He tossed his grandfather's wand in the air and found a box of matchsticks in his great aunt's junk drawer. Newt caught these deftly, stowing the matches in his charcoal grey coat. He pocketed the lighter, too.

"Your breath." Rolf handed over breath mints.

"I recant my previous statement," muttered Newt, who wouldn't bother with clearing his wand. Dean snorted. "What'd you do, sneak?"

Rolf shot the question back at him, purely for the fun of it. "What'd you do?"

"I snuck a suitcase in New York." Newt grinned when Dean, who had heard this before, smiled. No charges had been brought against him, but the President had told him to skip town.

Rolf said this last bit in a rush, brushing out the mysterious atmosphere surrounding it. "I may or may not have snuck a wounded Demiguise past customs."

"Really?" Newt cleaned his lenses and replaced them on his face.

"Sam was a baby. What? Whatever. So did you!" Rolf shrugged this off like it was nothing. In fact, in a way, it was thanks to Newt Scamander he'd gotten caught. "I may or may not have …"

Newt offered his hand in congratulations.

Rolf read this as an Americanism, sure he read too much into this. "Did you just 'Atta boy' me?"

Dean sprayed coffee everywhere when he burst out laughing. Newt, not sure whether he did or not, studied his own hand. Rolf hugged him from behind.

Luna slipped a heel on her swollen foot and hooked a pin on Rolf's shirt. "Remember you're American, Rolf."

"English-American," mumbled Newt, tucking his smokes away with the useless lighter. Luna beamed at Newt when he didn't bother hiding an insult, entitled to the last word. "Yankee."

"Haha. I don't like you." Rolf pointed at his grandfather. "Hilarious. I was born here and you dragged me to Dorset a week later."

Newt changed to a poor New York accent, no doubt intimidating his wife. Rolf code switched from American English and British English all the time, which meant he messed up a lot. Rolf handed Luna her food, and Luna, perfectly content again, looped her arms through those of the Scamander men.

Dean followed them outside. "Mr. Scamander?"

"Yes?" Both Newt and Rolf responded.

"Yeah. The younger one." Dean found an abandoned football and dribbled like a man in reserves.

Rolf walking with Dean, ignoring the light rain, joined in the game, showing off his fancy footwork. Whenever he travelled, especially to South America, the Muggles and Muggleborn revered football like Quidditch. Frankly, Rolf preferred to stay on the ground if he wasn't on a dragon or a Hippogriff and picked up the game along the way.

"Who taught you?" Dean danced on his feet.

"Esteban? Esteban Garcia-Vasquez." Rolf nodded, his voice changing slightly when he unconsciously spoke Spanish rattling on about Esteban. Dean, lost, appealed to the other two. Luna, amused, conjured an umbrella to share with Newt and replied in Spanish, too. "Thank you."

Luna shrugged, doubling her grip on Newt's arm. Rolf spoke five languages fluently, including Arabic and Romanian, which is why the Weasley brothers loved him. Luna had picked up Spanish in the rainforest because it helped her survive.

"Newt." Luna waited for the crosswalk hit the old man hard in the chest. Rolf, already late or pressing his luck with time, purchased cigarettes at a shop and shook them at his grandfather. "Are we rationing to help him kick the habit?"

"Good girl." Rolf, pleased she caught on offered Newt one.

"I'm 113." Newt took one. "The flu can take me tomorrow."

"Yeah, coating your lungs with nicotine doesn't help that," said Rolf. He gestured at Luna. "Do you not want to see your great-children? I mean, you raised Sarah, Christopher and Francis …"

"Frank was a mistake," said Newt, not liking to talk about his younger son. "The other two were all right."

"Yeah, you messed up royally with Francis. Grandma said you punched him with he sold Hebridean Black eggs on the black market." Rolf handed him another cigarette and as a reward and tossed the football to a cute little girl. "Francis fucked up five ways from Sunday. But then there was me."

"I don't to talk about Francis," said Luna. She'd heard more than enough last night.

"No. My father lived for hardcore substances. He's probably lurking still on the streets." Rolf vowed never to let Luna or his children near the accomplished drug addict. Rolf entered Madison Square Garden, skirting past those who gathered for a Muggle television show. He saluted a cameraman. "He thinks I'm weird."

"You are," said Newt assuredly. Suddenly and defly, he reached behind a newsstand and struggled with a shimmering creature. He sounded both strict and fond, though Newt had never mastered telling anyone in the family off. An invisible apelike creature materialized out of nowhere. "I always win hide and seek, Samuel."

Samuel, a Demiguise, freaked out when a fat boy pointed at him. He disappeared and scrambled up Rolf's back. The Demiguise clung on for dear left. Luna handed her yogurt over. The kid, a tourist in a New York City t-shirt, gawked at the yogurt emptying itself apparently of its own accord.

"Hey, Sam." Rolf opened his mouth and let the Demiguise feed him. Rolf shrugged at Dean, who gawked. "Go with it."

"You want to play babysitter?" Newt shook a disappointing finger at Samuel. Luna jumped on this opportunity and shot her hand straight in the air. "Apes and babies. Close enough."

Dean snickered.

"Thanks, Grandpa." Rolf got groomed by the Demiguise. As they greeted the magical audience about the release of a secret Scamander visit, Rolf pulled Luna aside. She'd braided her hair, a detailed he'd missed when she'd changed her shoes. "Where'd you get the lighter?"

"Ron. Ron Weasley said something about your grandfather … and Dumbledore … I told Ginny you were having a cloudy day. She knows what that means. I don't know." Luna glanced at the microphone and bit her lip. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're really beautiful." He tugged at her dirty blonde braid.

"Yeah." She didn't believe him. Luna asked Newt for the lighter. She slapped it in Rolf's hand. Rolf, mildly interested, clicked it. The light from the cameraman's equipment got trapped here. "Play later."

"Yeah." Rolf frowned at he

"Rolf." She kissed him. "You're not Francis. You're dark and trapped right now, and I understand that. But I cannot let you into the dark place, okay? Come back to me."

"Okay." His promise sounded empty.

"You're Newton. We all have a got dark side." Luna magicked a vintage Klein blue jacket out of nowhere and helped him shrug into it. It smelled of nature and the lingering scent of tobacco. "You have two people - four people- who love you."

Rolf, scared out of his mind, nodded at Dean as the man introduced him at the podium. Rolf kissed her hand, took a deep breath and readied himself to break news about the Scamander Foundation. Samuel found the goodies and delivered a perfectly disguised line as the Demiguse enjoyed morning munchies.


	2. Chocolate

Rolf talked to a stranger. Once upon a time not long ago, this idea crossed his mind, but things started getting better. Rolf Scamander led the perfect life: a wife, a kid and another one on the way, and he walked in and demanded a job as Chief Consulting Magizoologist; Rolf crafted this nonsense out of nowhere, and Barnabas Cuffe lapped it up like a parched dog, desperate for a new angle to breathe life back into the once standard of wizarding newspapers across the world.

Seamus Finnegan seemed less effeminate than his boyfriend. He walked, talked and brogued right out of somewhere in Ireland. Weekly chats with his secretary's better half raised eyebrows and questions, but Rolf tried to keep an open mind. Seamus signed a wordy confidentiality agreement. The neutral colored walls provided good staring spots into space, so Rolf really had no complaints when he went on what the Muggles referred to as cruise control.

The few few weeks passed in a flurry of questions:

Do you sleep well?

Define "well". No, Rolf didn't sleep eight hours a night.

Are you finding it difficult to complete simple tasks?

No.

Is it difficult to find happiness?

Rolf threw this question out on principle, not bothering to place it on the back burner.

Did he go through ups and downs?

Rolf asked for the handwritten questionnaire at this point, for he could be dousing his sorrows in beer, or wine, or mead. As Seamus shared a bed with a black man, the race card thankfully stayed off the table. As Rolf came from New York, he called himself an African-American, but he sometimes chose "other." Seamus sat behind a desk and allowed Rolf to pace the room and reel off these answers, and Seamus never put a quill to parchment.

Was the glass half-empty or half-full?

"What kind of cliche nonsense is this?"

Rolf turned on his heel,going back the way he came and imagining himself wearing trenches into the carpet. Seamus sipped his afternoon tea, working straight through teatime to make time for his patient. Seamus shrugged, watching Rolf, apologizing for interrupting him. Rolf clenched his fists, furious beyond belief he ended up here. "My wife insisted I come here because she's growing two tiny humans and would rather not deal with a third child, so consider yourself a glorified babysitter. I want happy pills."

"No." Seamus scribbled something down and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

"Happy potions?" Rolf fished at the bottom of the barrel. Outside of his first world problems of forgetting protection almost seven months ago, he wanted an answer. The right one.

"No. Fresh out of happy pills and potions," said Seamus, lying through his teeth. Rolf took out a hip flask and enjoyed a swig of mead. "How's the sex life?"

"Would the pregnant wife give this one away?" Rolf, unabashed, swam through topics such as these because a beast functioned this way to weed out the weak. The sides of Seamus's mouth actually twitched, but he stayed in his austere, professional matter.

"You were left in a New York dumpster at Christmastime." Rolf blinked furiously, merely acknowledging this fact with a stiff nod. Seamus crossed his legs, and if he felt sorry for the unwanted Scamander boy, he hid his interpretation. "Your grandfather found you."

"What's your point?" Rolf gripped the arms of his chair, his knuckles not turning white.

"Do you want to be a father?" Seamus spoke softly, patiently, merely throwing the question out there.

Unconsciously, Rolf wiped something from his eye. What the hell did he know? If Rolf came along circa he'd find himself among friends or frenemies. Harry Potter, outside of holding the position of Rolf's wife's best friend's significant other, meant next to nothing to him.

Seamus got up to get the tea he'd turned down earlier and switched it to coffee with a nonverbal spell. He reached out to touch Rolf's hand as he sank back into the chair, but Rolf held his hands in his lap.

Seamus went fishing. "Do you not want these children?"

Rolf answered with silence, and apparently he spoke loudly enough because Seamus sat up straighter. None of this would reach Luna's ears, but Rolf had no idea what Seamus did in his spare time.

"When my wife told me she was pregnant, I wanted to call her a cheater so I could walk out and forget I came as close to…" Rolf observed Seamus's behaviors. He smiled sadly, his tears swimming in his eyes and accepted tissue paper. "Sorry."

"No apologies." Seamus cancelled his next appointment and parked his butt on the comfy couch. Rolf noticed he moved around a lot and made himself quite at home. Relieved they finally got somewhere, he, Seamus, ventured out long enough to say Francis's name. "Do you follow faith, Mr. Scamander?"

"Call me Rolf." Rolf burst out laughing, blubbering like a Mooncalf. If Seamus peeled away whatever with his chiseling and reduced the Chief Magizoologist to fat tears, he'd earned the right. "I'm a Jew."

This did not answer the question. Seamus moved his hand in a so so gesture, apparently deciding this might be the best he'd get.

"Religion passed down from your grandmother?" Seamus understood Jewishness got handed down on the maternal side. As Rolf had never met his mother, Porpentina Goldstein Scamander took on this role gladly. Rolf revealed a hidden Star of David pendant. "Cool."

He dropped the proper Mr. Scamander nonsense after this. Rolf grinned. He didn't call his biological mother by name. Charlie Weasley referred to her as Needles. This stuck.

"What's your grandmother like?" Seamus found a stash of chocolates and patted the spot on the couch and shared a box with Rolf.

"Grandma. She likes … Grandpa actually saluted her in an annual dinner with the Scamander Foundation." Seamus choked on a chocolate, and Rolf cleared his airway with a simple spell. He remembered this fondly. Newt Scamander didn't even "think as he presented a knee jerk reaction. 'They are a team."

"Getting on?" Seamus phrased this delicately because Rolf dwelled on this all the time. They were both pushing it past 110.

"Yes." Rolf chose a hazelnut sweet. He frowned. "Have you met them?"

"Yes." Seamus was either a really bad liar or a sneaky sneak.

"You talk about me?"

"Rolf." Seamus waited. Rolf clammed up for a while, not sure he felt bad about this one way or the other. They all knew he wouldn't say anything. "He loves you dearly. If my Pop Fergus loved me so, I'd be fat."

"I was. No, I swear to God. Chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. Called me Pudgy Badger in school. Nymphadora Tonks branded me with that name." Rolf, a naturalist, struggled a lot with keeping his inner fat boy in check. He did rather good after getting stationed in Romania with Charlie. Rolf didn't pay for these sessions, yet it secretly pleased him Seamus Finnegan didn't match himself with St. Mungo's. "I'm an open book. What do you want to know?"

"You've been a rather difficult read for a couple weeks." Seamus pointed out.

"You're lucky you got me in here." Rolf passed this off as ups and downs, and if Charlie hadn't threatened to sit sentry and add commentary whenever he damn well pleased, Rolf wouldn't be here.

"How are you?" Seamus asked this frequently.

Rolf often got crushed by how he really wanted to answer. "I tried to kill myself in Romania."

"Okay." Seamus sat back, clapping his hands together. He sounded like they discussed the weather and let Rolf take this conversation as far as he wished.

"I walked into a nest and I didn't go through protocol." Rolf remembered it like it was yesterday. A nesting mother broke every bone in his legs. "Charlie Apparated next to me. He said he couldn't shake a feeling."

"How did you feel?" Seamus made notes in a bound book.

"Empty." Rolf walked down the same path nowadays, and he couldn't quite explain the despair and loneliness he bore day in and day. If he called in sick, Rolf stayed trapped inside a mind he could rarely shake.

Seamus dipped his quill in ink. "Close your eyes."

Rolf followed the instructions.

"Explain the difference between loneliness and alone."

Tears spilled down Rolf's cheeks. He was never alone. His people, especially his grandparents and Charlie, saw it whenever Rolf fought to hide his dark side. As the head of a company worth billions, he couldn't falter as the weak link.

"You're good at this," said Rolf, taking the tissue from the box Seamus conjured. Seamus thanked him and abruptly snapped at him to keep his eyes shut. Rolf's timing at the end of the session proved impeccable, especially since they stole someone else's time. "I am never alone. I learned to love the loneliness and expected nothing else, so I guess I'm a high functioning…"

Seamus clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Leave your self-diagnosis psycho babble at the door."

"Your boyfriend could tell you all the good stuff in pillow talk." Rolf shrugged this off as nothing, but a part of himself knew Dean Thomas didn't want to see him as any less than Mr. Scamander. Something bothered him about this ordeal, and Rolf warily chose not to put all his eggs in one basket. "Who referred me?"

"I can't tell you that," said Seamus.

"Newt Scamander. Jeremiah Talbot." Rolf fired off Rio guesses, although he wasn't sure he got three of these. Seamus admitted he hadn't the slightest idea of who Jeremiah was. Rolf asked about Dean. "Jeremiah heads the reservation in Romania. Heartstrings Sanctuary."

"That's a helluva job."

"Jeremiah walks through fire unscathed," recited Rolf, adding fuel to the fictional fire. Jeremiah lived for dragons. Charlie did, too, but Jeremiah placed Heartstrings on the map when it came to dragon reservation and research. "Jeremiah. He cried when he heard Luna was pregnant. Man is a brick wall."

Seamus smiled. "Finally wanted to settle down?"

"Luna went on about this biological clock. And all I heard was this incessant 'tick, tick, tick.' One split into two. And your family growing exponentially doesn't help the insomnia." Rolf laughed uneasily with Seamus. "If I am anything like my father, she needs to take these children away from me. I don't… I didn't…"

"Most kids are accidents." Seamus said this strongly enough that it hit home. "Me Dad writes tax laws, and yes, it's as boring as it sounds. If what you say holds true about this father and son stuff, I took a wrong turn, and I'd rather continue on going the wrong way."

"What're you writing?" Rolf admired how Seamus moved with a fluidity in his work. He, Rolf, experienced headaches because of headaches he got from never slowing down.

"What do you like about your wife?"

Rolf got caught off guard. "What?"

Seamus repeated the question. Rolf automatically responded about the radish earrings, and Seamus burst out laughing.

"They're good on salads. I don't think they belong in your ears." Rolf's Aunt Sarah had followed Luna like a hawk in the beginning. She admired the Butterbeer cap necklace. (Sarah stole one once.) "No. Seriously. I like that she really doesn't give a fuck."

Seamus smiled. "More."

Rolf made him swear he'd never tell a soul. Seamus crossed his heart, a line he'd no doubt picked up from Dean, and hoped to die. But not really die. He hoped the Draught of Living Death might be handy and threw in this carefully phrased caveat.

"

"Okay." Rolf turned beet red. "I was virgin on my wedding day. Thirty-one."

Seamus waited.

"We married in Devon. She wore this dress. Made famous thanks to Rita Skeeter." Rolf scowled. He really hated this woman on principle. Seamus, cool you please, flashed a newspaper clipping.

"Unicorns and rainbows." Seamus got up to speed quickly.

"Yeah. So." Rolf crossed his legs, leaving it there for whatever it was worth. "So … we arrived in Rio de Janeiro and I cut her out of this thing and she walks into the water stalk naked. My jaw dropped. Needless to say, kudos all around."

Rolf recited a line he'd learned in Portuguese. Seamus inferred inferred whatever he needed from his imagination. Rolf and Luna spent the first year or two of their enjoying sex all over the world. Rolf usually shared this stuff with Charlie and bits and pieces with Jeremiah.

"Marriage? You roll over." Rolf snapped his fingers. Seamus excused himself at this point, and Rolf heard him laughing all the way down the hall. He pulled anything funny with the straightest face and often stumbled upon the everyday stuff. Seamus returned. "Kit Swordsen. Jewish comedian from Denver, Colorado."

"Funny?" Seamus stood by the door and checked his watch.

"Oh, my God. You'll laugh until you cry or piss yourself. Delivers dark humor like he's moving in on your girl." Rolf struck nothing better than lead whenever he happened to hit a funny bone. "I suffered what Charlie called a spell and he dragged me into the Red Rocks. I have a really, really Jewish grandma."

"I have a friend. Anthony Goldstein."

"Oooh, we might be related," said Rolf, shifting in his chair. Comfortable than he'd been in days, Rolf relaxed. "I can breathe. We might have to keep this up."

"Same time, same place." Seamus shook his hand and handed him a business card. Seamus clapped him on the shoulder and handed him a box as a parting gift. "You lock dark, scary things in the box and you walk away."

"Really?"

"Really, really." Seamus wrote an appointment slot on the back of a card and grinned when Rolf pocketed it. Boogeyman's real, my friend, we're gonna lock him away. Not today. We're okay."

Rolf left, muttering this line to himself like a mantra.


	3. Wine

Seamus told Rolf to think of this as an affair. The wife didn't need to know; in fact, if Rolf really, really wanted to know, Luna pushed him to speak with someone else because he needed to keep things separate. Of course, Rolf never had the opportunity to swing both ways, so this might be quite fun.

"I'm your other boyfriend?" They met for breakfast at nine o'clock in the evening at an authentic Italian place. Rolf ordered risotto with porcini mushrooms, and Seamus stuck lasagna; the waiter dropped by with a basket of bread and poured the wine with a generous hand. "I like this place."

"Yeah, you really wouldn't know it was here," and Seamus, relaxing with the challenge at hand. He liked his food, and as Rolf was a self-confessed foodie, a session at table made them happy. Seamus committed the sin of ordering a cappuccino at night; the waiter, his opinion written all other his face, stood there and waited for the stupid Englishman to change his mind. "What?"

"In Italy, you don't order a cappuccino after ten-thirty in the morning," said Rolf, clearing things up as their server stormed away. Rolf didn't speak Italian any better than a small child and he never milled around as a tourist anywhere. A waiter set a plate of spaghetti carbonara on the table and nodded at the chef. Rolf expressed his thanks and gawked when he recognized a face. "Giovanni!"

The chef, balancing a lot of tasks like an organized octopus, saluated him at the pass.

"Do you know everyone?" Seamus found no complaint about the buried table. Rolf shrugged. The fame came with the name, and Luna honestly knew more people because people loved her enthusiasm. Shifting the risotto aside, he attacked the pasta instead. "You're like a fat kid in a sweetshop."

"I like food." Rolf acted like a garbage disposal, a Muggle contraption he knew about. He found clean silverware and spun spaghetti with a fork and spoon, a trick he'd picked up from his grandfather and offered it to his counselor. "Taste."

Seamus savored the meat, clapping his hands together and getting down to business. "Good. So, here's what I've observed. You're not doing your homework."

Rolf frowned at him. Where in the world did he get this impression?

"Your vices. And correct me if I'm wrong here." Seamus put down his napkin and sipped his wine. "Food and sex."

"I don't…" Rolf sat there for a long time. Giovanni plied them with gelato and more wine after the dinner ended. What if Rolf didn't place his stuff a box and lock it away or whatever? His tongue thick, Rolf simply went with deny, deny, deny and found speech difficult with his thick tongue. "What does that matter? You put it in the box. Take your emotions and shove them deep, deep down. I did."

"No. That's not what I said," Seamus disagreed softly, raising his hands when Rolf, glaring at him. "I am trying to help you, Mr. Scamander, there's no fixing this if you don't do the work. Where are you going?"

"Home." Rolf paid for the meal and got to his feet. Seamus shrugged sadly at Giovanni and followed Rolf outside. Rolf, a little intoxicated, stumbled through the cool air. Seamus switched subjects, trying to be conversational and managing to travel by Side-Along Apparition.

Luna stood outside underneath an umbrella and tended to midnight meconopsis, a blue Himalayan flower best tended late at night. Rolf frowned at her. For settling down and no longer living out of suitcases, she liked their house in Dorset. She'd braided her hair, talking to the plants as they approached.

Seamus gave Rolf a look. If he expected Rolf to return it, he didn't. "She's still weird. Great."

"You've never been out of the country. You're weird." Rolf tapped Luna on the shoulder, scolding her lightly for staying in this position. He bent and kissed her on the cheek, leaving her to her work despite the fact it was dank and darkness fell. "How are you?"

"I hear you got in an argument with Miss Skeeter today." Luna frowned when Rolf rolled his eyes at the sky. He started walking away and doubled back, helping her to her feet with a flat apology. "Newton."

"Fine," he said, cutting to the end.

He simply didn't want to deal with this tired, old argument before it even started. Luna recited her usual line, If he didn't want to chain himself to a desk, this was perfectly fine, but it helped nobody when he entertained the pigeon and fed it. Seamus pulled a genuinely confused look as they headed inside. Luna, barefoot, covered the tiled floor with dirty footsteps. A draft of a manuscript lay on the kitchen table.

"You write?" Seamus turned down a coffee when Rolf headed into the half bath.

Rolf listened, taking his time relieving himself as Luna talked about her books. She worked with Newt Scamander on the fifty-fifth edition of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. Few people knew this because she preferred to have nothing to do with it; Newt had slowed down and insisted this his greatest work, a living, breathing thing.

"Oh, this isn't mine." Luna searched Rolf's face when he stepped back into the kitchen. He said nothing. She touched the brown paper covering, a trademark of Obscurus Books. "I suggest you thank your grandfather."

"For?" Rolf cleaned the espresso machine by hand.

"There's a dedication in there that will make you cry." Luna found the Demiguise on the couch and led it away like a small child after Rolf peeled oranges and placed them in a small bowl. Sam clung to Luna, his new momma.

"You've got an invisible monkey?" Seamus gawked at Rolf. Rolf left out the part about Sam the Demiguise having his own bedroom; he slept in a cubby in the wall. "Can I get one?"

"No." Rolf laughed, his anger already forgotten. Seamus asked questions about the Demiguise. "I found Sam trafficked in India and offered him to my grandfather. He's a furbaby."

"Your practice child?" Seamus jumped.

Damp and ruffled, Sam scurried into the kitchen and cuddled with Rolf, inviting himself to be carried around. Sam signed crudely in American Sign Language. He didn't know a lot.

Rolf chuckled, correcting Sam lightheartedly and raising his voice. "Tricking is unfair, Luna! No baths!"

"Your problem," she said, her voice muffled.

Rolf signed with Sam and kissed him on his damp fur. Rolf walked around the kitchen, cleaning the kitchen with simple spells. If Seamus decided he'd stick around, he might as well take these as billable hours. Luna returned, looking like a drowned rat as she dried her damp hair and wore new clothes.

"I got a shower," she said brightly, dumping a basket of soaked towels in the laundry room. "That's a hard no."

"Sam, this is Seamus. Oh, don't." Rolf frowned when the Demiguise shimmered away. "That's hello. He loves Grandpa and Charlie."

"Yes. Who doesn't love Grandpa?" Luna signed to Sam; the Demiguise buried his face in Rolf's shoulder. "Yeah? No."

"I'm the favorite."

"I got a bowl thrown at me." Luna stuck to this argument and sit down at the table. She waited for them to start whatever. Someone knocked on the door. Rolf motioned for her to stay seated. Luna liked physical activity. This whole pregnancy thing threw her off.

Rolf called at the visitor to wait for a moment as he rushed to the front door. No surprise there. Newt, who lived a hop and a skip down the road, smiled at him from underneath a yellow umbrella. However Charlie might argue Newt Scamander may outlive them all, the old man and his wife experienced bumps and bruises along the way. Newt had draped his vintage Klein blue coat over his umbrella along with his Hufflepuff scarf.

"What happened?" Newt's infectious smile turned upside down.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Rolf took the old man's things and stepped aside.

"You're lying. Haven't I told you you read like a book? These are yours." Newt expected a better reception and acted a little put out. Rolf thanked him. Newt limped inside, closing his umbrella and using it like a walking stick. Newt waved away Rolf's excuses and ambled into the kitchen. "You got any coffee, or sugar, or coffee?"

"Are you out of the essentials?" Rolf considered coffee a top priority.

"Yeah. Ooooh, espresso. When did you get all fancy?" Newt fidgeted with the machine and went way past the state of confusion. Luna pointed at Rolf and the machine, illustrating the proper solution to this problem. Seamus grinned. "Yes, you, whippersnapper. Fix this."

"Not presumptuous," said Rolf, qualifying this statement.

This wasn't going to be a newly acquired nickname because he already had a handful of those: Scamander, Jew, Little Newt. The old finely ground stuff got dumped and he made three espressos as Seamus slid comfortably back into professional mode and opted for silence as Newt twiddled his thumbs and studied something new on his hand.

Rolf sipped his drink and waded through a pregnant pause. "What're we doing? Grandpa sat through first session. Quiet as a church mouse, Mr. Finnegan."

"He can." Seamus, sorry, pointed at Luna like he felt bad turning her down. "She can't."

Luna's silvery blue eyes got really big. "He tells me everything."

"Yeah. No, he doesn't. No husband tells his wife everything." Seamus drummed his fingers on the table. The therapist stuck to the raw deal, which is why Rolf liked him. Luna bowed out gracefully, but she edged back in when Seamus revved up again. "He's a really boring read."

"Thanks." Rolf grinned.

"Look, Luna, if you're married as long as Tina and me, you're going to find out eventually." Newt pulled up a chair and shrugged when Rolf soaked up the guilt. "Tell her."

"Francis is an ass? The end." Rolf smirked when Luna seconded this assessment. If she'd not been pregnant, she might've skipped down the corridor. Instead of clinging to her usual dose of happiness, she poured herself some green tea and ecapsed with the draft of _Fantastic Beasts_.

"The honesty in your relationship? Top notch." Seamus made a note in his head. Seamus conjured his notes and flipped through the pages, taking them back to the mid-eighties. "Okay, so Frank left you at the magizoo and got carted off to jail a month later. You were thirteen?"

"He left me for him." Rolf shifted Sam on his lap and pointed at his grandfather and perched himself on the counter. Newt nodded, not bothering to comment on his eldest son because he really had nothing nice to contribute to Francis's character. "Say something, Grandpa."

"Following the golden rule," said Newt kindly.

"Yeah, I dunno why. He found *Longbottom Leaf in my jeans." Rolf spelled it out quite plainly. Rolf suffered from anxiety and abandonment, and he'd experimented with stuff because his father had found it easier to plant traces on a teenager. Rolf shuddered. "I took care of Francis … I wiped away the filth, and the sick …"

"That's not fair." Seamus paused again, testing the waters. He waved in Luna's direction, indicating the two on the way. Seamus acted as a roadmap and helped Rolf along gently. "Remember when I said something about we are who we are and we are who we were?"

Rolf nodded. Sam reached up and gazed at Rolf's tearstained face. Newt cried silently, too.

Seamus crossed his legs and sat up straighter, shifting his weight. "Life isn't fair. Francis offered his contribution, but a sperm donor doesn't make a father at the end of the day, Mr. Scamander. Francis said you're not his son. So what? An ass is an ass is an ass."

Newt dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

"This man. This man." Seamus pointed his quill at the elder magizoologist. "He's your father."

Seamus viewed everything as an outsider, merely giving Rolf a not so gentle nudge out the door. When they hugged and Newt patted his grandson reassuringly on the knee, Seamus shrugged like he'd seen this coming.

"It is a privilege, sir, and I'm not saying this to simply say it, sir, but I'm sure you get this a lot." Seamus shook Newt's bruised hand and set his cup on the table. "To meet the man who raised this humble bastard from scratch. A Hufflepuff, he's dripping with the friendliness."

Newt shuddered with nervousness and handed it down to a team effort. Rolf was raised by his grandfather, his grandmother, his great-aunt, and his aunt. Seamus tapped his wand on the table and magicked a box out of thin air. It was a box of homemade honeycomb.

Rolf enjoyed a piece, nibbling on it thoughtfully. Seamus, his job done for the evening, gathered his things and asked to see Luna. They found her in the nursery, fast asleep in the rocking chair, the manuscript in organized piles. After he switched the clothes over to the dryer, Rolf saw Seamus outside.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, ashamed of his earlier behavior.

"One step forward and two steps back is progress in my book." Seamus decided to let Luna sleep. "Can I tell you something me mam, Savvy, shared with me the day I fell outta the tree?"

Rolf said yes.

"'Seamus, it's what you do after you fall down that counts.'" Seamus adopted another person's brogue, imitating his mother and bothering to put his hands on his hips for good measure before he returned to himself. "I'm going to hug you now."

Rolf stood there and felt strangely comforted and lighter when Seamus held him a little too long. Seamus patted the Demiguise awkwardly on the shoulder, cleared his throat, and said good night.

Rolf and Newt went back towards the bedroom. Rolf, biting his lip, opened the book and thee pages bound themselves as the shuffled back into place. The Demiguise curled up with Luna, all forgotten and forgiven. Rolf, glancing at his grandfather, flipped past the initial publication pages and read the introduction.

"'To the love of my life, the one who isn't my wife, I promise to never leave your side,'" Rolf read aloud, glancing at his grandfather as he cleaned his glasses. He continued, his voice steady as he went on. "'You are the one who makes my life fantastic and magical.'"

*Longbottom Leaf is a reference to "The Lord of the Rings", a tobacco leaf, pipe-weed


	4. Brother

Luna often took matters into her own hands. An admirable quality, she got an idea in her head and she ran with it. Rolf followed her back to New York in the early morning hours. Five weeks had passed since the meeting in the kitchen. Rolf went with this haunch she imagined herself as a protector. Transatlantic Apparition proved dangerous and draining in the best of times, and she shared her body with two other people at the moment.

She broke the law. As a rule of thumb, Rolf enjoyed dual citizenship because he was born on American soil. Luna swayed steadying herself by grabbing a Muggle or a No-Maj. Rolf rolled his eyes, If he tried to think one step ahead of Luna and really reached her understanding, he abandoned reason and thought. Shrugging into his grandfather's trusty old peacock blue coat, Rolf reminded himself this, too, was home.

"Don't go down Fifth Avenue. Come on. Damnit." Rolf Disapparated.

What were the chances she'd find a homeless man in New York City? He Apparated again outside of the slums. Luna removed her jewelry, but those Catherine Hathaway heels presented a dead giveaway. Luna walked with a purpose. She performed a Color Changing Charm on her magenta winter coat, turning it charcoal grey and buttoning it up.

"Yeah, you're going to get the flu or pneumonia." Cold in New York wasn't the same in London or Deva. Rolf grabbed Bill Weasley because Charlie got lost in some assignment and got buried in paperwork over a breeding problem. Bill kept close, though he looked like a fish out of water. "This way. The folks outta of Macy's will stampede you."

"That's a really expensive watch," said Bill, watching an investor.

"I wear a Cartier." Rolf had left his watch on his bedside table and dreaded walking into city, any city, on day off. Christmas shoppers scared him half to death, and he hated Black Friday with a passion. Luna either didn't know or didn't care about this. "Where are you going?"

"She looks for carrying twins." Bill commented, speeding up when they spotted Luna check a letter. "She's not in touch with him?"

"I'm going to kill her." Rolf's jaw dropped when she set her wand tip to the paperwork and stamped it out with her foot. She stopped again, asked for directions and a man at a food truck pointed her towards government subsidized housing. Rolf ordered two sauerkraut dogs, handed one to Bill and lost her. "Hey, hotdog guy. You live there?"

"Yeah. I can't chat." The vendor shut up when when Rolf ordered a footlong dog and fries; he handed the chubby little boy a free lunch and paid with a fifty, throwing the change back. "A name. I want an address."

"He's a rich Jew," offered Bill, sipping his drink.

"Frank Joseph. Wojnarski?" Rolf spelt this out following the military alphabet. Mr. Hotdog said no, but Rolf jostled his spot in line. Frank held aliases for his aliases, so this ended up as an awful guessing game. "Barnes? No. Swordsen? Joey …. Francis Dietch!"

Something passed over the vendor's face.

"Francis Dietch. Address!" Rolf scribbled the address on a napkin and raced towards the complex, Bill, impressed Rolf hit the streets like a dog gnawing on a bone, followed him to 105 B. Seamus would've lost it over Rolf making this move. As he approached the apartment, Rolf raised his hand and froze, and this suddenly frightened him. "Yeah, I can't."

"What? Scamander." BIll gripped his shoulders as Rolf started hyperventilating. He suggested they go inside, and Rolf, who heard nothing but his father's harsh, gravelly tone in his head, shook his head vigorously. "No. bad idea. Okay."

Bill conjured a paper bag and opened it. "Dad uses this Muggle remedy. Breathe in and breathe out. Do I need to get Charlie?"

"Can't." Rolf concentrated on his breathing, and Bill walked him over to sit on the curb. Charlie knew everything, absolutely everything, and Rolf knew Bill might've suspected things. Bill parked his butt on the curb and waited like they had all the time in the world. It got easier, thankfully, and Bill rested Rolf's head on his chest until he calmed down. "Thanks."

"Never comforted a pretty American black boy before," said Bill, grinning. Rolf muttered about blowing stuff out of proportion. "Nonsense. Can I share something with you?"

"Yeah." Rolf blinked furiously, smiling when Bill said Arthur Weasley stuck the magizoologist's grandson somewhere in between Charlie and Percy. Bill needed to get a story straight.

"Charlie told me and Tonks this bastard locked you in the bathroom once with ammonia. And made you clean it. Is that true? Yes or no?" Rolf nodded. Bill inhaled deeply and got to his feet. "How old were you?"

"I don't remember, Small." Rolf leaned more on forgetfulness than forgiveness, and this had happened long ago. "You know people must be be licensed to get Crups? Some people simply shouldn't breed."

"No shit. What the hell?" Bill cracked his neck, angry now. "Fleur will never call you crazy, or demented or mad again."

"It's fine. You're not a Scamander if you're not weird." The sides of Rolf's mouth twitched, and he felt better, "Grandpa wrote him out of the will on my tenth birthday as a present. Invited him and everything. Plied him with wine and asked him to not keep in touch. Grandma told him to sign over parental rights and get the hell out."

"Damn, Grandpa and Grandma don't play." Bill snickered, enjoying this happy ending. Rolf, confidant and collected, let Bill pull him to his feet. Bill knocked and asked to see Luna without saying so much as a hello.

Francis wore a jersey over jeans and appeared little more than skin and bone, but he looked like he at least held down a job. His auburn hair got sprinkled with white, and he didn't seem to recognize his son. Luna sat on a leather couch and had bothered to transfigure her expensive shoes. She smiled serenely at Rolf. Francis lived on the bottom and settled for his shabbiness.

"He's going to be a father," said Francis, turning back to Luna. Something like shock or maybe even a trace of fear passed over Luna's features, but she merely rested a hand on her belly. She composed her features, and Rolf noticed she, too, counted the filth in the ashtray. "Who're these people? Friends?"

"Yes," said Luna slowly, frowning when Bill gave the slightest shake of his head. Bill gave his name and introduced Rolf as Mr. Talbot. Francis offered them drinks and asked after Rolf and Luna invented a story. "He's in South America at the moment."

"So close to the birth?" Francis frowned.

"I have the people I need," said Luna lightly, and she shifted when Francis burned through some other substance. Rolf waited for to gag when he rolled with dirty fingers, but Luna declined politely.

"Sounds like me," coughed Francis, "Maybe Old Newt will realize he's nothing more than a bastard. He's just like me."

"He is nothing like you, sir." Luna took an edition of the Daily Prophet, an edition of "100 Most Influential People of 2010" out of her bag, open to Number 33, Mr. Rolf Scamander himself standing on Millenium Bridge examining a Billwig. She still spoke conversationally still, the slightest trace of apparent anger slipping in when Francis switched to colorful language. Bill stayed his hand with difficulty when Francis referred to her as a whore. "I am no whore, sir."

"You're young. Thirty? Opened your legs to gave my bastard an heir?" Francis spat at her. Luna simply stared at him. Rolf, furious, counted in his head.

Tears filled Luna's silvery eyes, but she managed to get to her feet. "Good night, Francis, I think it best we leave this here."

"He's a black bastard. Bet that doesn't help things." Francis always held interest in getting in the last word.

Luna struck him hard in the face. Francis, surprised, for she'd put her weight behind it, cradled his jaw. Bill didn't even bother holding is laughter. "Not that you'd give a damn, Mr. Scamander, your son is extraordinary. He's intelligent, and kind-hearted, and genuinely nothing like the shell of a man … you are nothing. It's been a pleasure. I really hope you find someone."

He gawked at her. "I'm a grandfather."

"They have a grandfather, thank you. Two of them. We're good. I'm good. Your son takes care of me because he loves me. Thank you for the tea." Luna, smiling serenely, strode out of the apartment. Bill astounded at her courage, laughed his head off when they headed down the street. "Newton."

"You can't save him. I told you. I know you have this perfect picture locked in your head." Rolf stopped abruptly when her eyes welled again and her bottom lip trembled. "I'm sorry."

"Bad move," said Bill, warning him too late.

Rolf apologized profusely. "You're going to fall apart now, aren't you?"

Luna nodded. Rolf congratulated himself on being ninety-percent honest all the time. He needed a piece to himself, which is what he supposed Seamus may or may not have meant mixed in the psycho babble. The self-depreciation worked.

"Scamander doesn't know what he's doing. Luna, none of us do at the beginning, okay? Every traveller eventually comes home ... or whatever my dad said whenever Victoire was born. Scamander's, you know Scamander." Bill returned Luna's smile and returned her thumbs up. "Charlie wanted me to pull the big brother thing."

"You're really good at it," said Rolf.

"And Scamander? Own your shit, all right? You are who you are. Who gives a …?" Bill gestured towards the sad, sorry excuse a sperm donor. "You're not him. If you're not Scamander, who the hell are you and when's Scamander coming back?"

"Charlie needs his bromance," translated Luna. Bill high-fived her.

"I'm looking at Bill and hearing Charlie," said Rolf.

"Yeah, well." Bill shrugged this out like it was obvious. "I have six siblings. What's another one? Charlie came crawling to me and said, and I quote, 'Scamander needs to fix his shit before Thing One and Thing Two arrive. Postscript: Luna, that's a compliment. Love you.'"

Luna turned to Rolf and laughed heartily. "He's understanding enough to tag this onto the end."

"Are we good? Because when Charlie pulls a Molly Weasley over …" Bill gestured at all of Rolf. Rolf seriously doubted whether Molly ever placed such a dirty word in her vocabulary. Rolf assured him he was all right.

"You lead a team of researchers?" Bill stopped by smother food grinned when the Scamanders ordered macaroni and cheese. Rolf added a dash of hot sauce to his and shrugged, his mouth full. "Yeah, you run around like a headless hedgehog ...but Luna delivered the friendliest 'I need you to get the hell away from me' I have ever seen. That's an art."

"We're sharing this." Luna put their food together in a takeaway thing and waved goodbye to the vendor. Someone, paparazzi desperate for nibble with the _New York Ghost_ or some other paper like the _Massachusetts Bay Chronicle_ , got in awkward shots. "Rita Skeeter hates me. Why?"

"You don't give a damn." Bill fed her the answer and Luna stuffed her face.

"Your flaws are as endearing as the strengths. I'm busy making life here. We need to save this for later. Black olives and cream cheese." Luna handed Rolf the lid and planned her next snack. Rolf waved at her to continue and purchased things at a corner store on their way up to the apartment. She panted lie a dog, but he didn't care. "It's cold."

"Got it." Stowing the food away, Rolf built a fire by hand and made sure she got comfortable on the couch. Newt had advised him to bend over backwards as they went through the home stretch with the babies. "You want anything?"

Luna patted the spot beside her. Rolf showed Bill the sparsely decorated spare bedroom.

"Rolf." Bill rarely bothered with dropping his first name in casual conversation. "You're okay."

"Thank you." Rolf offered an automatic answer.

"No. I'm serious." Bill clapped his hands on Rolf's shoulders and grimaced, his mauled face handsome still. "You could've… you put your life together and you believe in tending to the hearth. You've got this. You're hearing me, but you're not really hearing me."

"I'm frightened," he admitted.

"I know." Bill embraced him and neither of them said anything for the longest time.


	5. Upside

A year and a half passed in a blink of an eye. Luna shifted from a she to a they. They shared their life with a set of biracial fraternal twins: Lorcan was white and a chatterbox; his brother, Lysander, liked reading and laughing.

Newt Scamander never bothered with explaining inside jokes. They really stayed in the inner circles of all inner circles; Rolf nibbled on a sugar cookies and enjoyed a laugh. Charlie got it. It hit him right in the funny bone apparently and shot stale coffee through his nose.

Newt clapped the burly man with burnt arms on the back. Following procedure he'd learned from the dragon reservation in Romania, Charlie shot his arms straight up. He counted in his head, but he counted off on his fingers, which meant he visited the burn way too often. The quirks never left the man.

Charlie counted the long way because he rather enjoyed taking the scenic route and chatted up the gypsies. The would never marry. He got around. The sides of Newt's mouth twitched.

"You make a pretty matron, Scamander," said Charlie, not flinching as Rolf peeled back layers of dead, decayed skin.

Rolf nodded, examining his work. The beer did nothing to hydrate the dragon wrangler. Charlie reminded Rolf of his twenty-first birthday, a low key affair where Charlie had covered up his mistake by scraping of the charred bits. In America, the age of majority came three years before a man or woman could legally partake in the good stuff.

"He makes an even better cook." Charlie stole the cookie, grinning when Rolf complained. "An excellent baker, which means you're one hell of a housewife. Lucky Luna."

"I have a wife." Rolf cleaned up his space, careful with the sterile environment. Charlie kicked his legs like a little boy and like picked up Lysander although it obviously pained him. "Lysander, easy."

"He's fine," said Charlie, seeing the boys as his. Lysander whistled through the gap in his teeth. Lysander smiled at his father, alight with happiness without a care in the world.

"One for you. One for your brother," said Newt.

Newt handed the toddler two cookies, laying down the rules and creeping around like a crab, pretending to chase him off. Lysander shared a language with his brother, "twin language", a phenomenon that delighted the closeted research. Lorcan sat in the corner with building blocks and traded with Lysander.

"You're retired." Rolf reminded him of this a lot, but Newt considered this a loose definition and found questions and beauties in his environment.

"Oxygen still goes to the brain," said Newt, tapping his temple. Charlie crumbled a cookie in his fingers, a sweet sacrificed to shock Rolf's memory about an hourglass. "How are your sessions with Seamus?"

"Not really original. He blindfolded me and insisted I forget everything. And he spun me around in circles." Rolf demonstrated, spinning around in circles, faster and faster, numbed by a dizziness. Nauseated, he stopped, and the little boys, confused, gawked at him like they saw a Runespoor. A rush, pure exhilaration, filled him. "What do you know? He's onto something."

Rolf tasted his sticky, sugar covered fingers after he touched a simple syrup. Newt smiled, an observer peeking in from the outside, and a brighter light filled his eyes, Rolf hummed a Romanian nursery rhythm, dancing with his boys.

Luna entered from the sitting room, a copy of Emeka Mwangi's Ivory Coast, in her hand. She'd turned it upside down. "You think he meant to do this?"

Rolf laughed, really laughed, and he barely heard her. Luna forgot the book, a manuscript in a borrowed jacket. Rolf strode lover, closing the distance between them and kissing her. Luna ran her fingers through his hair.

"Mwangi does as he damn well pleases," said Rolf, cocking his head interestedly.

Luna flashed the mistake and set the book on the cabinet. Emeka Mwangi, a magizoologist from Nairobi, lived and loved life. A friend a mentor, he inspired Rolf to never settle. He lifted Luna in his arms, carrying her into the sitting room, dumping her onto the couch like a sack of potatoes.

"We should drop everything and travel to Nairobi." Rolf leaned in and kissed her.

"We can't. You … we live here." Luna stopped Rolf's wandering hands. "Your grandfather. The children."

"We made the children acting like this," Rolf pointed out, shushing Luna when she delivered a cheeky response. He opened her blouse. "More.'

"More what?"

"Love and wine." Rolf unhooked her black bra with a quick hand. She laughed when Rolf flipped Emeka's book over and pretending the jacket got printed upside down, too. Written in English, this book might rival even his grandfather's. He caresses her face. tears leaking from his eyes. "Do you love me?"

"Always." Luna tasted the salt of his tears, pecking him with

small kisses. Charlie sauntered in, comfortable in his own skin. Rolf raised an eyebrow, and Charlie headed upstairs, shielding his eyes as he rattled about like a Bludger. Luna ""buttoned her clothes clumsily. "Charles,"

"Mrs. Scamander, ma'am." Charlie adopted a posh demeanor so far outside of his laid back personality.

"Nairobi. November. You want to see your best friend idolize a man he believes walks on water?" Luna played with Rolf's greying hair. Rolf neither confirmed nor denied this, and for her part, Luna ignored Charlie's comments about wine and water.

"Research isn't a holiday." Charlie said yes before hurrying upstairs.

"Emeka Mwangi." Rolf snapped his fingers, confused as to l. why she'd dropped this chance in the bucket. "We haven't travelled since the boys. You're bored out of your mind."

Luna didn't even bother hiding it. "Yes. The most interesting thing I have seen is this one-eyed slinging past in the neighbor's yard and I wanted it to be a Kneazle. You caught me. Remember when we used to eat and travel and argue?"

"We did other things." A knowing smile touched Rolf's lips as she narrowed her eyes. Luna got up, leaning in seductively and slipping into sultriness. "That's dirty. Yes."

"Mr. Scamander. You are inappropriate." Luna paled and flushed with color when Rolf slipped into a foreign tongue. Finally able to breathe, Rolf said in all seriousness he could breathe again and keep his head above water. "I know. You flash this crinkly-eyed smile. I've missed you."

"Me, too."


	6. Ramen

What is a shambles? Rolf Scamander asked his grandfather this question a lot before he finally got anything resembling close to an answer. He grew up in America and England, yanked across the pond, so he found words in the English language fascinating. Newt pulled a look filled with a seemingly endless nonverbal commentary.

Newt merely sat back, rested his hands on his belly, and studied his grandson over his spectacles. Far from his old days when he ran through city streets in his peacock blue overcoat, a shade the magizoologist incorrectly called Klein blue, Newt kept his white hair trimmed and dressed better than most Muggles; the old man liked to stay with the times and a casual suit usually did the trick.

"It's a mess," said Newt softly, licking his dried, chapped lips. Rolf handed him a tube, their roles reversed with time. Years ago, when he was a boy, Rolf got helped with small tasks. Rolf dressed the old man. "This doesn't bother you?"

"Did it bother you when I got diarrhea from eating the poisoned berries?" Rolf remembered eating what the locals in a quiet Peruvian village called rosa roja, or red rose, despite his grandfather's lighthearted warning. "When you shit and cough up blood at the same time, we'll enjoy a chat."

Newt shrugged, dipping his false teeth in a solution. The magizoologist enjoyed a not so quiet retirement. Rolf doubted he knew what it meant, and he often through it out like a joke maturing with time or wine.

Rolf loved his grandfather. He felt as though the old man kept his, Rolf's, heart beating. Newt wasn't always there with him because off illness, timetables, or what have you, but Rolf kept the man alive in even his slightest movements. A black man, an African American and part-time Englishman, Rolf adopted Newt's old style with light fabrics.

Rolf attacked with an ambitious flair because his family told him to believe in everything and question whenever there seemed to be nothing left.

"Rita Skeeter says you're wrong," said Newt, plopping down in the wheelchair. He'd fallen at the magizoo and suffered a broken hip, a shattered hand, and a sprained ankle on his right side.

"I'll prove myself wrong before Rita Skeeter puts any of this together." Rolf changed the bandages gingerly. He kissed the old man's fingers before he pushed Newt around. Newt, 113, luckily managed not to let the wind blow him away.

Newt's laughter shone in his eyes. "Play nicely."

"Why? She doesn't." Rolf lifted his grandfather in his arms like a small child. Newt learned not to complain, and they sprinkled the awkwardness with humor. Newt rested his head on Rolf's shoulder, spent after light activity. "Want me to read you a bedtime story? I do these animated voices for the boys. No extra charge."

"No. You like the Three Brothers, although you don't believe in any of it." Newt's feet, like icicles, turned this way because of poor circulation. Rolf worked around him, fluffing pillows and firing the warming pans with a Heating Charm. Creature comforts. I don't need to die in a feather bed."

"I believe in God." Rolf respected his grandfather's adoration of an altruistic agnostic, but he followed the Jewish faith. Newt, agreeing to disagree, flicked the Star of David dangling from his wrist. "You helped me through everything. There is a reason you are here, and if there's anything I can do to make it better, I will do this."

"You made chocolate chip cookies for the children." Newt leaned back.

Rolf went into the kitchen, nicked the cookie jar like a proper thief and carried it back into the bedroom. He filled a glass with ice cold milk by swirling his wand on the inside.

"That's not a very wholesome snack. " Newt grinned when Rolf, cheeky, turned his milk into chocolate milk and added whipped cream for good measure. In truth. Rolf no longer cared what his grandfather ate because Newt Scamander did as Newt Scamander damn well pleased, thank you very much. "I like you."

"I love you." Rolf's eyes went misty when Newt, smiling shyly, left it there. Rolf shared these words with very few people. He wiped the tears away, fighting the urge to beg his grandfather, his rock, never to leave his side. "Stay with me."

"Your God may disagree with you, son." Newt licked the cream from his fingers. He lifted his hand, locking his fingers with Rolf's dark ones. "I will never leave you, Newton."

Newt shared a part of himself with the younger magizoologist, and it wasn't until recently Rolf realized he wanted to continue his grandfather's work. They graduated from cookies to cheap instant ramen topped with a breakfast sample

"Sriracha." Rolf drizzled chili sauce onto the surface of a couple perfectly fried eggs. Newt appeared mildly interested for his benefit, and he hid any disgust. "Don't knock it till you try it. I'll eat it."

Newt mastered chopsticks. "It's American. If you bothered to eat the real stuff. Like pho."

"Taste it." Rolf sat on the edge of the bed and fed him like he fed Lorcan and Lysander. The salty both dribbled down Newt's chin, and Rolf cleaned up after him. "If you were poor and starting out in Romania, this passed for good enough because if filled your belly."

"You got trained in a kitchen," said Newt, chasing a mushroom around the bowl. The goodies sunk to the bottom.

"Stop eating it." Rolf had actually considered cracking the egg over to give the ribbon effect, but he knew his grandfather cared nothing for parlor tricks because he ate for survival. Newt shrugged, going to town on the dish and shrugging his approval. "Yeah. The whippersnapper knows what he's talking about in a pinch, eh?"

Newt asked for more, so Rolf demonstrated his ribbon technique and crafted egg drop soup. The stuff hit the spot. Newt called this dinner a shambles because they went completely out of order.

"When I die," he started, sighing when Rolf insisted he needed to talk about a lighter subject, but the old man plowed on, slurping soup. "I do not want to retreat in the dark place. Seamus did a lot of work with you, and I want you to brush yourself off and keep on walking. It doesn't matter what that woman says. You've got a big nose. You're Jewish."

"Who gives a shit about Rita Skeeter?" Rolf recited what his favorite dragonologist said about the gossip columnist. Newt studied him again, his clouded eyes narrowed. " Charlie. Not me."

"No. He's right. Sometimes the shadow wins." Newt considered Charlie's stroke of brilliance with adoration and admiration. "How old is he?"

"My age." Rolf frowned at him. "He's twelve days older than me, Grandpa, you shove our birthdays together on Christmas Eve."

"Right." Newt sounded weary. "Don't let them tell you what's supposed to be right. And if Miss Skeeter ever calls you niggardly again, you stare her down. You're mine."

"Okay." Rolf gathered the dishes, took them in the kitchen and dumped them for clean up later. "Grandpa?"

"Hmmm?" Newt accepted a cookie with thanks.

"I think I'm okay." Rolf nodded, stumbling along here and there.


End file.
